The Floor Collapsed in a Fire, and the Carpet Became a Cup

When it was time
to have tea, I quit

doing what I was
doing to put on

the kettle. For you,
smoke tea, the aroma

of which sends me
to a burning house,

its books, damp
from the hose, re-

homed in the pink
room of my eleventh

year. The edges
of their pages singed,

they never lost
their orange aura.

Ends of sentences
eternally burned off,

these gaps in meaning
were too small to matter

in the cheap paper-
back mysteries

favored by my first
generation grand-

parents. The margins
burn first. Whatever

I was doing, too small
to matter, can wait.